


Son of Zebedi

by Anticipatio



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors, Ancestors Named After Beforus Counterparts, Bad Cat Puns!, Bad Puns, Cat Puns, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Minor Violence, POV Second Person, POV The Signless | The Sufferer, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Some Cursing, character backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2001084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anticipatio/pseuds/Anticipatio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You could never be angry at the trolls who lashed out against your words. After all, that's how you met your third apostle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Son of Zebedi

You enjoyed quiet moments with the group. The frenzy of moving from place to place and the ceaseless concern of being caught wore you down and being stuck in an abandoned barn in the middle of a desert devoid of sentient life allowed for some time off, so to speak. The sand wastes provided little in terms of sustenance, but you admired the steep canyon just a ways off from the camp. It was a dramatic shift from the flat expanse of desert and playas and the only habitat for beasts any larger than a small lizard, perfect for probing around.

Yet here you were, arms stuck out like a bird-repelling hayman while Meulin got to explore the dried up river at the bottom of the gorge. "Mother," you groaned for the tenth time, “ _Mother_ , is this entirely neccessary right now?”

“Hush, little imp, your protesting won't make this any quicker,” she retorted, pulling mismatched pins and holding them between her painted lips as she sewed a burlap patch on your cloak with concise whip stitches. She paused for a moment and adjusted the pins extending from her mouth, adding, “I want us to look somewhat decent for our trip into the next city.”

This again. You spent much of your childhood admiring your mother's dedication to enhancing her lovely appearance, the ways she painted her face, grinding up clay and dried plant material to mix pigments, and the way she held herself to preserve the beautiful, iridescent fabrics she draped herself in each day. However, you were planning on hitting the industrial district of Ferruxe the middle of the next night. The city was the largest manfacturer of ship parts and, consequently, had an enormous population of enslaved psionics fit to helm the gleaming new crafts. Trolls “unemployed” or not fit for piloting were often put to work on the lines, risking limbs and lives creating items of luxury they would never be able to afford because of their blood color.

It was disgusting.

You weren't sure how you would be received. It was a mixed bag, but this was one city you were determined to gain some following in. These trolls were, even at their worst, extremely powerful psychics and deceptively intuitive, easily able to efficiently memorize complex instructions and quickly execute them without flaw, occasionally maximizing their efficacy by modifying their routines slightly. Dissent among them would cripple the ability for the empire to produce the weaponry and transportation they relied on to keep the warmbloods in line.

“Mother, I loathe to insult your delicate sensibilities-,” you started, scowling deeply as your mother snorted, “ _But_ I am not sure that having such fine clothes would appeal to these workers. They're oppressed, and seeing us dressed in the latest midblood fashion would probably not impress them- no offense.”

She looked at you with sharp eyes, the corners of her lips tugging into a tight frown that tugged at the fine lines drawn on her face at her relatively young age. “Sweetheart. My wonderful little rogue. Little devil child, do you not think that presenting yourself as a clean young troll would bring life back into these souls?” You furrowed your brows, opening your mouth to argue back before she cut you off to continue, “Many of them will be at the same stage of life as you, and seeing you as such a vibrant, flourishing individual would surely give them reason to consider what you have to say about the lifestyle you wish for them as equals.”

As she resumed her needlework, you gaped uselessly for a few moments before sagging slightly (quickly straightening as you saw her eyebrows pull together) and allowing her to finish the last small patches and hems without another complaint.

As the dawn approached, Meulin pulled herself up to your back and pushed her strong, calloused hands into the side pockets of your leggings while fitting her head against the side of yours with her chin laying on your shoulder, alternating between softly trilling a tune and chatting with your mother on menial topics. From here you could smell the dustiness she collected in the fine waves of her hair, no doubt knots forming around gravels. The intimacy of her presence kept you from fidgiting too much and by the first signs of sun on the horizon, the group's entire ensemble was fully repaired.

You pulled apart at the wilted, moist hay, stirring clouds of dust that whirled around the abandoned barn. A crouched figure seated behind you began to sneeze, taking in sharp bouts of air and expelling it in the most petite, polite manner you had ever heard. She was such a deceivingly dainty creature, slender curves and neat, pointed toes. You turned to greet Meulin, wavering as you eyed her body as she stripped her night clothes, chorded muscles shifting just beneath the thick, scarred skin stretched over her frame.

She gave you a cheeky, tooth-baring grin and threw her pelt sarong at you, laughing as it connected at your chest with a soft _fwoop_. You let out a rush of air and chuckled alongside her, your hands scrambling up to grip at the softly furred fabric before it could fall to the moldy ground. You watched her demeanor change as she pulled her lycra shirt off in one smooth motion and folded it against her chest. Her brazen smile turned down into a coy smirk that made her look more demure than she ought to have the right to be. “Signless,” she breathed.

“Yes?” you answered dumbly, face twitching into a small grimace.

“Kankri,” she said, rolling her shoulders and moving to take the skirt from your grip, “Are you nervous?”

“Nervous?” you replied. You began to release your hold on the article of clothing, “Whatever could you mean, my dear?”

You fumbled before she could grasp at the furs, hissing as you watched it fall to the ground with a small cloud of fine sand rolling around it. “Perhaps,” you sighed, crouching to pick it up off of the ground, “It's- They're the ones who could benefit most from change. I just don't know if they're too far gone.” You brushed what muck you could from her skirt, the matted hairs catching on more particles. Before you obsessed over every stain on the tattered sarong, she put her cool hands over yours and took it away from you, a natural smile returning to her while she wrapped her belongings in a sun cloak to captchalogue. “Love, whatever happens tommorow is not a judge of your character. These are broken trolls in a broken system, and whatever their reaction is to you will only gauge how deep the faults in society break.” She noted your frown with a glint in her eye, “But even the smallest movement creates an earthquake. Even the tiniest slip in the fault can shatter the strongest of structures on top, no matter how much wealth they are built upon. You are the catalyst for change that is bound to happen, and no tyrant can fight against nature as strong as that.”

The sincerity of Meulin's words shattered you, and your bloodpusher clenched and writhed to your throat. You reached your arms to trace the dip of her waist up the taper of her ribs. You held just under her breast, feeling each motion as she breathed, power rattling deep in her chest. You spoke up after a moment, “Why is it that I am the speaker here?” She guffawed, trailing into a laugh that was rich and soothed you to the very core. “Purrhaps you are mistakened, tomcat! Surely I canyat speak as mewningfully as you!”

“My Disciple!” you laughed, tossing your head back dramatically, “Woe is me, she is a wily thief! How could I mistaken her for anything but a feral troll?”

“A thief,” Meulin repeated, purring while she pushed her long fingers up your cloak to push at the middle of your chest with eyes half-lidded in mischief, “A cat burglar. Of what, though?”

Your eyes widened, and all the breath left you as she pushed you back into the haphazard sleeping arrangement you made.

\--

You blinked for a brief moment, looking between Mituna and Kurloz as they prattled on about their days while pulling at various collections of poetry and prose from your massive bookshelves, towering to the high ceiling and looming over everyone who came by. If you were to be honest, you did not actually read most of these books, but you liked to appear as if you had knowledge of the great writers, which worked out particularly well in the varying debates you meditated on whenever you spaced out.

Kurloz reached up high, gangly limbs working well to reach far out from the rolling ladder he was balanced rather gracefully on, considering he was only putting weight on one leg while his other stuck out at an odd angle. He hummed out an affirmation and pulled a black book with a round-nosed smiling face decorating the cover in embossed amethyst. You strolled over to him as he slid down the ladder's polished wooden side rails, noting the pristine gold edges on the pages, making the book gleam further in the dim lighting of the library.

“'Shit,” Kurloz stated, “I'm up and thinking this 's up an' my _righteous_ ancestor's work.” Mituna cringed at the sound of Kurloz wretching the book open, separating the gold leaf in a less than delicate tearing sound. “Man, no,” he protested, “No, no, no. Thtop. You'll ruin it, Kurloth.”

“A'ight, a'ight, shush skateshitter, I can all care for my own damn property-”

“It's mine, Makara,” you intervened, picking at your blunted claws in disinterest and exasperation.

“ _A'ight_ ,” Kurloz insisted, handing the book to Mituna and raising his arms in defeat, “I'm the asshole here.”

“Fuck yeah you are,” Mituna muttered. Kurloz whistled long and low, “Fuckin' shading me, brother,” making him laugh while he peeled away at the ridged pages.

“The Paroditht,” Mituna read from the first few inside pages. You all stared in varying degrees of interest at the photograph printed under the author's name, an adult indigo blood at least a few hundred sweeps old, with ragged scars and pock marks pinching the skin on his face sporadically. His hair stuck up, like Kurloz's shaggy nest, but it was straighter, looking more dirty and unkempt than naturally curly. His facepaint was elaborate, highlighting his high, sharp cheekbones, sunken eyes, and protruding brow that made him appear primitive in nature. A rack of horns, similar to Kurloz's yet more expansive, spiraled up and above the limits of the image, looking as if they would make his thin frame topple over with the slightest push. Your two friends looked impressed, but something about the figure's smile looked off, as if he were planning to...

“Bingo!” Kurloz hollered, pumping both fists into the air, “What a motherfucker! Ain't he just sick as tits? Lookit the _mighty religious_ paint! If'n I didn't know any better, I'd call him the highest of fuckers orating to the Messiahs themselves and gettin' his goddamn answers! Holy shit I am _pumped as fuck._ Who wants'a smoke?”

“I don't-  _ What? _ ” you sputtered, rendered speechless at his nearly incomprehensible outburst.

“I can't, I can't!” Mituna gasped, his wheezing laughter cutting off whatever rant you were about to improvise as he doubled over and clenched at his stomach. Kurloz looked on with a serene expression laced with the slightest bemusement. Surely, the already-tenuous filter between his mouth and brain malfunctioned in his excitement, making him believe that whatever garbage he just shouted actually sounded  _ intelligible _ . You gaped between the two idiots you acquainted with, lowering your head into your palms and considering the state of your social life.

When you looked up, all of the frivilous activity you believed you loathed had ceased. Mituna's buzzing laughter replaced with keening cries of agony, the faint shadows of pupils in his mismatched eyes rolled up into his head. Kurloz stood above him with stitched lips and a wild expression- in distress or joy, you couldn't tell. When he turned his attention from his moirail to you, he grinned (wryly? Cheerily?) and pressed a single finger to the bleeding form of his mouth.

You felt Beforus crumble into the wastelands of Alternia that seeked to destroy you, and you broke.

\--

“-ri? Kankri! Precious tom, my only love! What's wrong? Oh gods, what's wrong?” a disembodied voice shouted distantly. A rough grip on your shoulder brought you back from whatever daymare you experienced and you latched onto it tightly, using it as your only lifeline back into the world of reality. You heaved a great lungful of air, feeling the tightness and pressure of your body release as if you surfaced from the deepest parts of the ocean, “I-I'm fine, I'm... I just- Kurloz and Mituna...”

“Kurloz,” Meulin said, rummaging through her effects for her journal, “That is the highblood one. Mituna is his... moirail?”

“Goldblood, yes,” you rushed, still stunned from your abrupt awakening, “God, you should have seen it. The way they looked at each other and played and teased, it was...”

“Incredible,” she breathed, pressing the tip of her felt pen to her tongue and scribbling, “What happened?”

“They were looking for a book, one of mine, a poetry book, and Kurloz found it and he just,” you paused, giggling maniacally on your adrenaline high, “He just went off on some tangent that neither of us could understand about his ancestor and- and Mituna just doubled over and Kurloz just looked so... light.”

You stopped, feeling moisture prickling your eyes. Meulin glanced up at you but made no move to hold you, understanding your brief moment of dazed nostalgia and the space you always desired. “So light,” you croaked, staring off into the corner of the shoddy barn where the last strings of light faded, “Like he had no burdens, no anger, no hostility towards either of us.” Your head fell to stare at your hands, the last detail pouring from you before you could filter it, “And his ancestor was just a poet, Meulin, eccentric and ghastly, but no tyrant, and no Grand Highblood.” _The Parodist_ , you mouthed, remembering how his image did not strike fear into your gut (some unease, but no fear), and how the cold Kurloz radiated was not something to feel apprehension about, but trust. “And then I shattered,” you ended, taking another deep breath of the warm, musky air that felt heavy on your lips and nose.

Meulin penned the last elements of your story and pushed her writing tools away, a wilted smile and wide, saddened eyes painting her sympathy. She reached over and cradled your back, the slight chill of her skin grounding you and making you shiver. You sat together for a few moments, her rubbing the round protrusions of your spine, making you purr. Before you could relax back into sleep, the barn door creaked open. You tensed up, ready to bolt up and hide if needed.

“It's me,” a lilting voice called, “I made flat bread for today!” Your shoulders slumped and you smiled wearily as your mother slipped in, lugging a thick quilt practically bursting with its payload. “The dim season is great for sand baking,” she remarked, “And I know how much you enjoy fresh bread in the evening.”

“Thank you, mother,” you chirped whilst holding out your hands, palms up, and bowed your head. Meulin mimicked your gesture, both of you crooning grace just loud enough for your mother to pick up. She beamed, brushing her hands up your fingers before distributing healthy servings of bread to each of you.

While you ate, your mother asked about your sleep. You retold, more lucid than to Meulin, about the library, the book, and most importantly, the two friends and their interactions. You were much less hesitant to relay your visions since you began recalling the complex political and sociological connotations of the world you saw. Combined with Meulin's appearance, she began to soften up to the implications of your dreams as more than just a child's fable. “I think,” you reasoned between bites, “That I can use this story in my speech today. These are all trolls of similar caste to Mituna, after all.”

“You meowst!” Meulin piped, cheeks puffed with food, “Just imagine being beyowlned tole _rat_ ed by coldbloods. Being able to joke with them! It'd be a purream come true!”

“Those were quite bad,” you joked.

“I know, I'm just hungfurry! And a bite tired.”

“Tired?” Mother interjected, an amused grin slashing her face, “From what, dear?”

“M-mom!” you stammered, “Please, no. Noooo.” You winced and blushed, Meulin equally colored but laughing alongside your mother nonetheless.

\--

Ferruxe smelled sweetly of chemical residue that burned your soft tissue windhole the further to the industrial district you got. You wrapped your cloak higher around your mouth, the fresher scent of the stream it was washed in soothing your firey air sponges. Even with your face obscured, the lack of sign on your garments attracted a few curious trolls' attentions. You ducked in between backalleys and cut through busy intersections with a practiced ease, scouting for the most impoverish sector with the fewest guards. You felt confident, only seeing a small handful of threshecutioners and one archeradicator, an unusually small force for a city this sprawling, yet expected when all of the political power and responsibility was placed on the big business CEOpressors.

You reached a busy, illegally operated marketplace with ramshack stalls and half rotten produce on display with molded or infectious chunks cut out of them. Maroon and rust wrigglers clambered up to your group, attracted by the fabrics you wore, and clawed at the hems of your garments.

“Missster! Missster! I can work fer you! I'm a good worker!” one squeaked, a runt easily pushed aside by the larger, older trolls.

“Mememe! Memisterme! Icanclean!” another hurriedly trilled. Her movements were sharp-edged and pained from bright brown lesions lining her skin and her horns, which looked underdeveloped and soft, making you suspect that she had Frayednerve.

“Children, calm down,” you urged, “You do not need to work for me, I have plenty of bread to spare.”

Your mother pulled the still warm parcel from her sylladex and portioned quarters of the discs of bread for the children while they gaped and chittered amongst themselves. Your expression softened when they eagerly took what they could and munched slowly, as if practiced at eating after bouts of starvation. A few doubled back from the alcoves from which they appeared to fetch family, and soon you had a veritable horde surrounding you with more hesitant individuals skirting the very edges of the group. From what you could see, brownbloods were the most common caste in the throng, closely followed by maroons and a few dozen golds and even fewer olives, all of which had visible mutations.

While Meulin and Mother continued distributing food, you twisted through the crowd with little resistance and climbed on a sturdy wooden crate that stood at just about your chest level, giving you only the slightest of height advantage over the tallest amongst the congregation.

“Friends!” you started, tugging your hood over your horns and behind your head, cupping your free hand around your face to project your voice further, “Hear me out! I brought this food out of the goodness of my bloodpusher, and I would appreciate it if you could listen to my words for just a few minutes!” Most of the trolls turned to you, hushing their neighbors and swaying to catch a glimpse of the disturbance. “Thank you,” you shouted, bringing your hands out in front of your chest to gesture, “I know you all just met me, and it is hard to trust a stranger in this hostile environment, but I open myself up to you all in hopes of connecting to each and every one of you.

“I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Signless, and I am different, much like a majority of you.” You scanned the crowd and caught the eye of the two wrigglers that pleaded at you from the beginning, “My mother, the jadeblood with me, took me in when I was left to die in the caverns without a lusus, and I owe my entire life to her. I do not think she suspected what trouble I could be from such a young age, though!” you joked, watching the mixture of amused and bemused expressions of the crowd. “I spoke from a very young age, and I spoke of a fantastic world where I was friends with every single caste. You would have to be ignorant to see it as more than a child's fantasy, and yet it continued beyond my adolescence.

“Perhaps I was mentally ill, then, yet I could function and learn just like any other troll, and I never acted on what I saw. Things changed when I met my Disciple- say hello, love,” she beamed at the crowd and curled one fist under her jaw in a facsimile of an innocent child while the other clutched to her journal, “And I was able to not only recognize her, but her interests, dislikes, and every aspect I knew about her from my dreams. What started as silly fantasies evolved into complex novels, yet there was no ending. What I know now, a fact I stand by until my death, is that I was not dreaming, but _seeing._

“I had vision of another world entirely- from another universe, another planet, I could not tell you.” The crowd murmured for a moment, confusion blossoming into concern. “I know,” you laughed, “It sounds crazy, but I defend my sight. What I can see is so, so beautiful, a world much like our own but loving and tender rather than surviving by a thread on the violent hatred we live on. I know my friends exist out there somewhere, even if their role here is less than benevolent. Every day I wake up longing for their compassion, and I truly believe that there is a little bit unbroken in every single one of us, even in the purplest of bloods.”

There was a stunned silence that swept over the market, even the vendors drawn to your story. You allowed yourself to breath for a moment and relax, scanning the crowd with the familiar feeling of perplexed affection gathering. You were so vulnerable in both your emotional and physical state, able to be shot at a moment's notice or rejected, delicately balancing between being kicked in the teeth for your ignorance or embraced for the hope you could bring.

You thrived on this.

“Last night, I had a dream,” you went on, “Perhaps it was serendipity; a push to speak to you all. I was with my two friends, a psionic yellowblood and an indigoblood, and they were doing something as mundane as looking through a library. They touched and talked as if they were born and raised together, laughing and teasing. There was no fear in the yellowblood, in Mituna, and there was no hatred in Kurloz.” You saw sudden movement out of the corner of your eye, but nothing important enough to distract you. “In fact, they were moirails, and I'm almost certain it was Mituna who needed papping,” you chuckled, in too much of a trance to register the reaction of the crowd. “They were on equal footing despite the wide berth in their castes and discrepency between abilities and lifespans. That, my friends, is all I want, and I am truly either a stupid troll or one with well placed optimism for believing our race can achieve peace and equality despite our different-”

You flinched as a squawking bell tolled down the streets, scattering the workers in the crowd scheduled to go to work and stirring up the jobless. With their attention lost, you heaved a deep sigh and slid down from your makeshift pedestal. Meulin hooked around your neck and swung you around in delight, your mother coming up behind you and captchaloguing the quilt, devoid of anything besides the crumbs stuck between stitching. “Dear,” she started, putting a hand on your and Meulin's shoulders to pause your embrace, “I think you did very well. I ran out halfway through your speech, and they stayed.”

“Thank you,” you sighed, “But they were not dedicated enough to stay once their slavemasters called them back.” You kicked at the dirt and pulled your hood back over your head, muttering curses under your breath. “I know I just started in this area but they obviously have so little faith in me and-” you began, your rant cut short by the hard, push of psionics on your shoulder knocking you away from your mother's hold like a steel morningstar cutting into the edges of your body.

“What the _FUCK!_ ” the psionic assailant shouted, “What the _fuck_ ith your _deal_ with me, you fucking maniac!” He approached you with clenched hands, drawing himself up to tower over you while your mother and Disciple looked on tensely. The unsheathing of metal alerted you to the withdrawl of their weapons, but you quickly held your hand up to them to stop their advance. They watched tensely as you sat up to address the yellowblood hovering above you.

“I'm afraid I don't-” you started.

“Of courth you fucking do!” he screamed, a heavy lisp distorting his energetic tone, “You're thpewing _hoofbeatht-thit_ about all this _equality_ nonthenth, what the fuck ith your problem! Why do you gotta bring me into this?! I ain't jutht about to give up what li'l I have for your dumbath ravingth and if you think-”

“ _What_ are you _talking_ about?” you interjected, “Who are you?”

He stopped for a moment, arms twitching and a multitude of expressions crossing his face. You took a moment to examine him more carefully, noting the obvious mutation leading his red and blue heterochromia overtaking the scalera of his eyes. Four horns sat on his head, curved inward with the smaller pair further forward and closer together, sparks of electricity jumping between the four. His entire frame was long and emaciated, obvious under the standard workers uniform he wore with two poorly sewed horizontal lines on the borders of his torso and two long lines drawn down the middle denoting his sign. “You...” he whimpered, observing the obvious distress in your countenance, “you really have no idea what I'm talking about?” What aggression he showed before melted into a pitiful display of submission, the sudden swing in mood startling you.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” you affirmed, pushing yourself back onto your feet while he sagged closer to your level in defeat.

He grumbled and winced, gripping at his head as another shrieking alarm reverberated between the tight walls entrapping the street, “I can't, I can't...”

Your brain slowed to a crawl.

You felt the sensation of deja vu cloud the corners of your vision. The back of your mind jeered nonsensical phrases out of context and without stop.

“Haha, kinky!”

“I ain't about to hop on your bulge if that'th what you're athking.”

“Oh my fucking god, you idiot!”

“Rad moveth, Tulip!”

“Man, that'th tho thtupid.”

The sudden onslaught of a singular voice felt like cold water being poured on your bare head, like the electrical burn of psionics kicking you to the side. You could suddenly recognize every single detail of this stranger and his dumb, crooked noise and the way his expressive brows wrinkled his forehead. You could imagine the dimples punched into his cheeks when he smiled his cackling laughter, but you could also see the way his throat bobbed when he was distressed or the slump in his posture when he stayed up too late in manic fits. The love in his eyes when he saw his matesprite, the desperation for silence at last, the meditative state he reached when he heard _that one voice_ screaming in his head, you could see it all.

A blaze encompassed you for the first time since you met Meulin.

“Mituna,” you whispered, reaching for his face. He flinched away and looked at you as if you had a knife to his throat.

“Tho you do know-” he raved, voice raising in pitch again.

“You have a horrific sweettooth,” you deadpanned, holding your hands palms out against your chest.

“What-”

“You enjoy things that come in twos or multiples of twos. You're a little bit compulsive about having things neat and in order. You're more athletic than others give you credit for.

“How the fuck-”

“You have horrific moodswings that often leave you crippled in depression or fidgiting in mania. Despite this, you're actually rather passive-aggressive. You have no regards for other people's personal space and you like to make sexual jokes too often for anyone's liking-” you crowed, cut off when he shouted wordlessly and physically pushed you away, glaring at you, yet there was hesitance to his actions.

There was a crackling of psionics and intensity between the two of you for an uneasy few beats. “Don't fuck with me,” he barked, turning a pirouette and storming down the road. You scrambled up and chased after him, roaring, “Why don't you believe me!?”

“Becauth!” he snapped, not bothering to turn his head to address you, “I'm regithtered as a fucking thlave, you probably jutht picked a random name to thtick with or thomething.”

“Friend-” you pleaded.

“ _DON'T CALL ME THAT!_ ” he wailed, voice wavering and a glassiness to his eyes betraying his antagonism towards you. He turned sharply into a largely abandoned sideroad bordering where market ended and industry began.

“Why don't you believe me!?” you insisted, “I'm not asking you to trust me! I just... I just want you to believe me, Mitun-”

You felt an explosion of pressure behind your eyes, making your ears pop and ring incessantly. For one psychotic tick, you wondered if maybe you had just died. It was very inconsiderate for your friend to kill you, and especially at such a time, you deduced. Your whole body was numb and without edge, floating on a cloud of ecstacy where even your demise could not possibly penetrate your thinkpan enough to bother you.

The featureless shapes of your body began to form at the tips of your fingers, cold and tingling shooting up into your shoulders and shaking you into consciousness. You choked on the polluted air around you, the blotchiness in your vision and muddled inner ear distorting your position in space. Something cool and comforting touched your forehead, though it did not relieve the upheaval in your digestion sack. You flung yourself to the side and vomited, feeling wetness seeping through gashes littering your back and head. Between heaves, you took sharp, short inhalations that left you feeling dizzy in oxygen deprivation.

Far away, after your ears began to clear, you could hear Meulin screaming profanities as your body was jostled. Mother's voice quavered closer to you, panicked encouragements making you feel even more hysterical, wanting to flail out and run away from the danger your body sensed was still _too damn close_. “Mom,” you croaked, “I'm scared,” before passing out once again.

\--

It felt as if cotton was shoved directly into your eye sockets. You opened your mouth and groaned, your own tongue weighing your head forward. Something cool pushed your cheeks and adjusted your head back upright, causing you to huff out in protest. “Stop,” your Disciple said, miles and miles away, “You'll bash your head again if you're not careful.”

“Wutha fug 'appened?” you complained, the lead weight in your mouth and stiff jaw slurring your speech substantially.

“Language!” Mother uttered, “Kankri, don't strain yourself.”

“Whu'appened?” you pushed, your aching eyelids opening ever so slightly. Your vision was still blurry and patched.

“He exploded and blasted you a good fifteen feet back, you slid on the ground and hit the front of a vendor's stand,” Meulin explained, massaging her fingers into your jaw and collarbone in search of unseen fractures, “You're concussed.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, “Can' see li'l bit.”

“I think you messed up the seeing center of your thinkpan for a little bit,” she hypothesized, feeling up to your temple, “Tell me if anything hurts.”

“I think he saw your blood,” your mother blurted, uncertainty straining her normally prim speech.

You took a loud exhale of breath, tailing in a groan of frustration and anxiety. “He ran before we could catch him,” Meulin added softly, “I covered up the stains.” You shifted in your seat, feeling the bandaging and gauze lining your back and head stick to the scabbed cuts and scrapes, flinching as a few pulled away against the friction from the hale bale you sat against. Every joint in your body creaked and your muscles ached stiffly. None of your bones scraped oddly, though, and you were surprised at the lack of fractures from the impact. Your mother smoothed an alagesic balm into the recesses at each joint, making you smell of sharp mint and the forest.

You spent the next few nights contemplating your encounter, leaving the intricacies of your interaction with Mituna feeling more and more convoluted. He was just as, if not more, unpredictable than in your visions, but you should have expected that if he did not have a moirail like Kurloz and worked in such a dangerous work environment. Meulin scribed your near daily visions and your sentiments. Bless her, however, in the breaks she took to sketch and distract you from your healing pains, mental and physical alike.

Mituna never really left your mind, and something about the abandonment left your emotional state shattered. Your wounds healed quickly with the treatments your mother and Meulin used, allowing you to get up and move around within a week. You considered your next move, not eager to leave the city with such a brief introduction. Admittedly, you did try your best to stir up a fit in every community you set foot in, and being nothing more than an eccentric stranger left a sour taste in your mouth.

This, however, was a little extreme.

You pulled over your tan sun cloak, thick with multiple layers of material and with a hood that extended further than standard, able to be pulled over your face if you were to walk towards the sun. It was still early evening, but you took every precaution you could going out of camp this early, especially when your mother wasn't filled in on the plan. You and Meulin shuffled out into the badlands, looking around each corner for any signs of Mother. The heavy heels of your boots covered up the crunching of alkaline sand as you dashed towards the city. The trip took more time under the heavy weight of the sun protecting clothes, but you still managed to make it back to the industrial district in a timely manner, just as the moon peaked over the horizon.

The largest factory you saw had heavy security along the front and back doors, but Meulin's dexterity and a substantial length of rope allowed you two to break in through a large ventillation shaft in the side. Meulin scouted ahead, searching the floor for where the highest concentration of workers were without guards interfering. From experience, you headed straight towards the smelters as soon as you were able to orient yourselves, where the room heated up beyond a coldblood's comfortable range.

While you shuffled, you took a peak through every passing grate to observe the conditions of the psionics forced into construction. Smaller trolls with weaker abilities worked with finer objects requiring less power and more precision, like the minute radioactive pieces that went into scanners or powering minor systems independently from the helmsman. The further towards the hangars you went, the larger the parts were. Soon, you watched as psionics wielding immense skill constructed the weapons, disabling systems, and chunks of hull.

“Meulin,” you whispered, “Stop.” She shuffled back a little to look through the opening a few feet in front of you, answering with a quiet, “What?” From your vantage points, you could see the most gifted few trolls manipulating beams of pure energy into expandable nets to capture smaller ships and disable their systems remotely, a job that would overwhelm others with lesser telekinesis. Within the group was two pairs of horns with steady lines of electricity forming between them, the wielder fidgiting dangerously. “Five-one-seven-one!” a tealblood barked, causing the flawed plasma to sputter and dissipate in a discharge absorbed by rods extending like spires from the floor. Mituna chattered nervously with the highblood, bowing his head in a show of submission and nodding weakly at the end of his chewing-out.

When he began to exit through the maze of doors in the factory, you and Meulin twisted and contorted to turn back around, harshly sputtering when you bumped elbows and knees. You slid out the way you came, risking shortcuts and cutting through empty rooms to find your way out quickly. You uncaptchalogued the rope you used and shimmied down the side of the warehouse as swiftly as you could, taking a hard landing when you jumped from a higher point than you were normally comfortable with. Your knees and heels ached while you ran down the paved street, only speeding up when the speck of another troll appeared in the horizon.

“Mituna!” you bellowed, the figure freezing and hunching further in on itself. The closer you got, the more you could see his head darting from side to side to consider his escape options. Just as he twisted to bolt to his right, you reached over and tackled him to the ground, dirt and electricity stirring up around you and making your wirey hair stand on end. “Mituna,” you gasped, “Please!”

Meulin caught up behind you, snarling deep in her chest with her claws unsheathed, but making no move to approach. Mituna twisted underneath you and stared with a scraped cheek leaking rich gold down the contour of his jaw and into the hair pulled back by the utilitarian uniform. Out of instict, you wiped it with your finger, unable to bring your hand back up when his snapped from the side to grab it. You hissed at the pressure making your wrist joint groan.

He broke the silence between you, whimpering, “How do you exitht?” You laughed shakily and retrieved possession of your hand, cleaning the blood with the stained underside of your cloak while you sat up to straddle his knees. “Pure damn luck.” Mituna laughed uneasily as he sat up, the beginnings of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. “I fucking hate thith plathe,” he said, the roughness of his tone making your bloodpusher lurch in sympathy, “It'th like- I wake up thometimeth and I can't even remember my name, I can only remember my number. I can't think for mythelf; I need thomeone to order me around, and it fucking thcareth me.

“I'm tho fucking thorry, I'm jutht a brainwathed thlave and it hurtth tho bad. I can't thtop thinking about what you thaid and I don't even know if it'th true, but if it getth me away from thith hellhole I won't wathte my opportunity.”

“Skeptics welcome,” you replied, pushing yourself off the ground and holding your hand out to help him up, “I'll just have to work harder to convince you, friend.”

“I will thtay with you until the end!” he lisped, suddenly and chaotically, pulling himself up and slouching closer to your height.

“I'm not your... slavemaster,” you protested.

“I'm- I'm thorry, I'm just not used to- I'm thorry!” he sputtered, standing up straight with a deranged twitch.

“We'll work on that,” you muttered, fingers coming up to rub at your temples. He flinched, and you had to remind yourself that he was often around other psionics that would be more than willing to blast him across the room if he got on their bad side. Your hands quickly came back down to your side.

Meulin cautiously came to your side, hugging your side tightly and glaring at Mituna from over your shoulder. You could feel her grumble wordlessly from her throat, a low and threatening sound. You sighed and rubbed your hand at the spot between her horns, “Meulin, Mituna, let's go. Mother's going to kill me.”

You didn't stop Meulin from punching him in the jaw when his response was a whispered, “Crazy bitcheth.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm no expert in biblical stories, but I researched what I could from how Jesus met the apostles and decided to combine James and John, sons of Zebedee, into the Ψiioniic. I took some cues from the Paradox Space comic Suffering Through/For The People and made him more... erratic than I noticed other writers tend to make him. A little Mituna, and little coolguy fandom Psii.


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